Aircraft are custom made products having a relatively low production rate. A customer specifies requirements for a new aircraft, and “options” are designed to be installed in the aircraft.
Designing the new aircraft includes defining aircraft structures (e.g., components and assemblies) and their relationships. During this phase, geometries of structures are created (e.g., by performing solid modeling), and analyzed.
After the aircraft is initially designed, manufacturability of the design is assessed. During this phase, the design is disassembled and then reconstructed according to available manufacturing processes. This phase includes tasks such as tool design, creation of CNC Machining instructions for the product's parts, and instructions for assembling the parts.
Designing a new aircraft is an ongoing and iterative process. As the design matures and all options are completed, and manufacturability has been assessed, the aircraft is built and assembled.
Design-to delivery of a new aircraft can take a long time. It would be desirable to shorten the design-to-delivery time.